Nomar, Mia and Stan

As some of you guys have probably read, Nomar and Mia are holding a private soccer clinic at his old high school, St. John Bosco, this weekend to announce the launch of their new foundation, 9 to 5. While this is not a Dodger event, we’re obviously very supportive of the two of them and their efforts to benefit Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, where we also have a very strong relationship.

At Sunday’s event, there’s a recruitment drive for bone marrow donors so if you are free and able to come help save someone’s life, we’ll hopefully see you down there.

Also, I mentioned last week that one of our trainers, Stan Johnston, got the chance to address many of our troops on the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan before they headed off to the Middle East. Stan was blown away by the experience and shared a few photos with me, so I wanted to post one just so you can get an idea of what he was doing. The pictures obviously don’t really do this justice, but we thought you might enjoy. With all the debate in the country these days about the right strategy in Iraq, there seems to be no debate whatsoever that as long as our troops are abroad, we all must support their efforts and this was one small way that Stan was able to do that.

I know there are still questions about the rewards club and while I don’t have any answers yet, I promise you that as soon as it’s resolved, you’ll be getting information both here and directly to you via email. Thank you for your patience.

And finally, I know that one of you wanted to know how I got started at the Dodgers and while I won’t bore you with all the details, I can tell you that I began as an intern in the Advertising and Special Events Department in 1995 and slowly have worked my way up, just like any other industry. As you can imagine, it’s a very tough business to crack into from the outside because there are so many people who have dedicated years of time and energy at the lower levels of the field. But I can also say that the best thing to do is regularly check the Dodger job board on the website for openings with our team and others.

In my opinion, the inarguable strength of the Gonzo contract is its length and its cost (comparatively low for this offseason) – if he gets injured or just plain *****, there are roster players who can step in and produce. Regardless, if our prospects are ready (or Jones wants to come West), he’s gone for ’08.

Just recieved my 2007 baseball america prospect handbook. I do love these books, and spend many hours reading them. they rate the teams, the Dodgers are 6 th, after being 2nd last year. It says the way to drop in these rankings is by graduating impact players to the big leagues.the Dodgers were not the organization of the year for nothing, and they have two of the minors top lhp’s in elbert and kershaw. Their top 30 are 1)LaRoche,3b 2) Kershaw,lhp 3)elbert,lhp 4) Loney,1b 5)Etanislao Abreu, 2b 6) Ivan DeJesus Jr. ss,
7) Jonathan Meloan rhp, 8) Blake DeWitt 2b/3b 9) Josh Bell, 3b,10)Preston Mattingly ss, 11) Chin-Lung Hu ss, 12) Bryan Morris rhp, 13) Delwyn Young of, 14) Justin Orenduff rhp, 15) Zach Hammes rhp, 16

By position rhp 9, lhp 8,3b 3, 4 or 5 depending where you put DeWitt, Santana, a soon to be 21 year old switch hitter, ss 3 1b 2, 2b 2 abreu, and DeWitt, of 2 and catcher Santana.

any way you look t it, this is a great group, and we have enough talent to add another 20 players whom I think most teams would love to have. they are Brian Akin rhp, b.j. LaMura rhp, Eric Hull, rhp, James McDonald Rhp Ryan Rogowski cf ,Anthoney Raglani of, Matt Brerezay of, Adam Goodwin cf, Scott Van Slyke of, Bridger Hunt of, Andrew Locke, of. Lucas May of/c Jamie Hoffman of, Juan Rivera ss, franisco Lizarraga ss, Travis Denker 2b, Elian Herrera 2b, Russell Mitchell 3b Rick Taloa 1b, Chris Malone rhp carlos alvarez lhp, Marlon Arias, lhp, Wifredo Diaz lhp, that’s more than 20, and not put in any order, but I would say our future is bright. Not all will make L.A. some may have to be traded( thise who are blocked by even better talent), but they make our off season better , and it is fun to follow their developement. I’m sure you could add even more names to this list.

i cant find anything on james mcdonald. is he the james mcdonald out of poly high school in long beach frank?? if you could give me some info that would be greatly appreciated. he was on my little league majors team. last i heard he got drafted out of high school in 2003 i believe. 20th round or something?? i ve been trying to get info but havent had luck.

So my girlfriend and I were just looking at getting our tickets for this season and she noticed something interesting. We’re thinking about getting the all-you-can-eat seats for one game just to check it out and the tickets site says that beer is available for purchase. I thought you all might like to know this since I know I’ve heard at least one person say that the AYCE seats would sell better if you were able to buy beer there.

So JD Screw is finally a Red Sox, better yet he is finally an ex-Dodger. ESPN posted quotes from their conference call today and had an interesting quote from JD:

“I’ll be glad to hit behind them with guys on base, and to watch them from the on-deck circle. Great, great hitters in the American League,” Drew said. “When you play the game of baseball and you play in front of passionate people, it becomes contagious. That’s where you get the home-field advantage. That’s where a player really enjoys playing.”

Is it just me, or is that quote not an indirect shot at Dodger fans passion? Let me ask this to you JD Drew….When was the last time you showed passion on the baseball field? It certainly wasn’t in your (barely) 2 years as a Dodger…

As a Dodger season ticket holder, I received a special invitation to go to Dodger Stadium today as part of their new “Select-a-Seat Upgrade Program”, where season ticket holders can upgrade their current season seats, if they choose. After a brief introduction, we were allowed to roam around the entire stadium (except for the Pavilions, which are undergoing repairs).

Man oh man I was like a kid in a candy store! I checked out the new field level box seats, which were really cool, but I was absolutely flabbergasted by the Dugout Club seats, which go for a mere $27,500 per seat for the season ($26,000 if you purchase it for multiple seasons). Interestingly enough, there were VERY few of these seats still available.

After waking up from my dream of someday having seats there, we were allowed to go down into the Dugout Club for all of the free Dodger Dogs, chips, and sodas we wanted. I felt was like a drug addict getting a fix! After wolfing down a couple of Dodger Dogs, I got up to leave when I ran into Mr. Dodger himself, Tommy Lasorda.

There were five or six people standing around me when, out of the blue (no pun intended), Tommy spreads his arms wide and says “You know, this is all possible because of folks like you. Without you folks and the support that you have given the Dodgers for all of these years, none of this would be possible. We really appreciate each and every one of you.”

I was awestruck. Here was a Hall of Famer and one of the greatest managers in baseball history; the man who had led the Dodgers to two World Championships in his twenty years at the helm thanking US! Now that’s class!

Call it a premonition, a hunch, or just plain dumb luck, but I had had the presence of mind to bring a baseball and a pen with me, because I learned a long time ago that you just never know who you might run into at Dodger Stadium. Without hesitation, Tommy gladly autographed my baseball and shook my hand.

Needless to say, I shall remember this day for the rest of my life. I am one proud Dodger fan – Since 1953.

hey thanks frank for the info. thats an old pal of mine from long beach little league. i caught him in the majors. he was so dominant in little league and high school i thought he had a good shot of going somewhere. his windup is pedro esque, so i dont know if hes had any injuries, but its nice to hear about him. tommy lasorda is the ultimate gentlemen i had the opportunity to sit right behind him for a USC Long Beach State college world series game, he still knows baseball. he was saying evan longoria from long beach state was gonna be special, and it looks like he was right. i didnt think he was that tall.

Hey jhall1218 – I would LOVE to see the clause in Drew’s contract now that the Red Sox are aware of his previous shoulder issues. I’m thinking that they will be able to opt out of the contract if he spends any time on the DL for that previous injury (which, like yourself, I believe will happen).

It also wouldn’t surprise me if Scott Boras stuck some type of escape clause into the contract as well, just as he did with Drew’s Dodger contract. The guy could care less about the good of the game.

In my opinion, Drew is on his way out of the game and the Dodgers are far better off without him. I also believe that Gonzo’s numbers will be better than Drew’s this season (except maybe HR’s because of Boston’s short RF porch). I also believe that Gonzo will quickly become a fan favorite because he WANTS to play in L.A. – something that Drew never showed.

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